


happy valentine's day

by jehans



Series: it's for you [27]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehans/pseuds/jehans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been dark for hours when you finally get a phone call.<br/>A year after "i want", Enjolras spends Valentine’s Day at a protest and Grantaire starts to worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	happy valentine's day

**Author's Note:**

> For context: Enjolras and Grantaire got together in April, so this is their first Valentine’s together, and Jehan and Courfeyrac are about to celebrate their first anniversary, so this is theirs, too.

It’s not like you expected him to remember. He’s not a very romantic person at the best of times, and this rally or protest or whatever the hell it is has of course completely taken over his mind and there’s no longer any way he’s going to remember that February 14th is supposed to be a special day for people who love each other.

And it’s not that you mind. You’re not exactly romantic either, and you’re not looking for grand gestures. You would like to spend  _some_  time with your boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, though, and he’s been gone for hours.

You’re starting to get worried. You didn’t go to this one because they didn’t need you. It was supposed to be some rally or protest or  _what was it?_  — but whatever it was, it was supposed to be over by now. They were supposed to protest their thing or rally their cause or whatever and then  _come home_. And the dinner you made might be stupid but now it’s getting cold and you’re getting worried and Enjolras hasn’t been answering your texts.

It’s been dark for hours when you finally get a phone call.

It’s Courfeyrac.

“There’s no need to be worried,” he says as soon as you answer the phone.

“Okay, well that kind of worries me,” you answer, fisting and unfisting the hand that isn’t holding your phone.

“No, it’s just that —”

“What happened, Courfeyrac?” you demand, your voice low and serious.

He sighs. “The protest got a little out of hand,” he says reluctantly. “A few of us got arrested.”

“Who?” Your voice is like ice now.

“Jehan,” Courfeyrac says, his own voice taking on a kind of beastly anger. “Me. Bahorel, of course. And…well, and Enjolras, obviously.”

“Did they hurt you at all?” you ask quietly, trying to contain your rage until you have all the facts.

“Bahorel and I are fine,” Courfeyrac answers. You can tell he’s trying just as hard as you are. “But Jehan and Enjolras… .”

“Is he coming home?” You’re shaking now.

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac answers. You can hear Jehan in the background, now, tutting over him, trying to calm him down. “‘Ferre got us all out and just dropped Jehan and I off at mine, he’s walking Enjolras over to yours now.”

You hang up. If you hear any more, you know you’ll scream. Jehan and Courfeyrac will be fine. Courfeyrac will tend to whatever wounds Jehan has and Jehan will bring Courfeyrac down out of his rage, calm him until he doesn’t feel like you do right now — like you want to kill someone. And then they’ll kiss. A lot. And probably have sex and cuddle, knowing them, and their Valentine’s Day will be salvaged and Jehan will heal. But you need to see Enjolras  _right now_ , or you don’t know what you’ll do.

When the door begins to open, your knees almost buckle under you.

He’s standing there, and he’s blinding with righteous anger, like some avenging angel. But there’s blood under his nose and running from a cut on his cheek, and bruises are blossoming on his jaw and over one swelling eye. You’re torn between heart-stopping relief that he’s in front of you and he’s safe, and soul-searing fury that someone dared to touch him, to mark him. You want to run to him, to hold him in your arms and close his split skin with your lips. But he’s as angry as you are. So you don’t.

Instead, you go into the kitchen and get a dishtowel and a cup of water. He doesn’t say anything to you, he just sits on the couch and seethes. You join him on the couch, tucking your legs up under you as you wet the cloth, and he’s mumbling something about  _gross injustice_  and  _absolute abuse of power_  and  _fucking disgrace_  and as you reach out to try to clean his cuts, he jerks away from you.

“I’m fine,” he snaps at you, angry at the police, at whatever injustice pulled him out there in the first place, and probably a little at you for not being there.

You’re certainly angry at you.

You reach out and take his chin firmly in your hand. “Like hell you are,” you mumble to him. You failed him out there, you won’t fail him in here.

He lets you dab at his face, cleaning the blood out from under his nose and across his cheekbone, swiping at the dirt on his forehead and under his lip. He glowers and hisses at you periodically like an angry cat, but you keep cleaning him until he’s been liberated from the blood and the dirt. The bruises you can do nothing about.

When you can’t do anything else for him, and he’s still glaring at you like you’re the one who hit him, you collapse. You want to be strong for him, but he’s here in front of you and he’s hurt but he’s safe and you were  _so worried_ , so you just…collapse.

You don’t expect him to catch you.

His hands are solid on your arms, his shoulder firm under your forehead.

He makes a sort of questioning sound in your ear, but you just turn your face into his neck, breathing in the scent of his sweat, his life. You’ve wondered before if you were going to follow him into an early grave, but now that he’s yours — really yours and you believe it now — you can’t bear to lose him. Your arms pull around him, dragging him as close to your body as you can. You want to absorb him, to morph into him until you become a part of him.

You feel his strong arms wrap around your body, one of his hands slip into your hair. His torso loosens a little and sinks against you. You can feel the tension release from his body and he breathes your name. It might be a question, you can’t tell.

“Do you even know what fucking day it is?” you murmur into the skin of his neck, tasting the salt of his sweat and the metallic of his blood. 

“What?” he asks from somewhere above you.

You groan and turn your face into his shoulder. “Happy fucking Valentine’s Day,” you sigh.

His hand in your hair goes still.

“Oh,” he breathes. His arm seems to tighten around you. “I forgot.”

“I know,” you say. “I don’t care, really, I just… .”

“You were worried,” he mutters. The venom is gone from his voice. Either he no longer blames you, or he never really did. His fingers card through your hair again. You nod into his shoulder.

“I texted you,” you say weakly.

His other hand starts stroking your back up and down. “My phone fell during the scuffle,” he says softly. “It shattered. I probably should have had Courfeyrac or Combeferre text you, I didn’t think.”

You press your lips into his neck. “I’m glad you’re safe,” you sigh, because that’s all that really matters anyway, right? Your nerves aren’t that important.

But then you feel his lips on your temple. “I’m going to take a shower,” he whispers against your head. “And I think you should join me.”

Before you can react, he’s untangling himself from you and pulling you up off the couch and into the bathroom. He starts the water and tests it with his hand before he turns to you and brushes a lock of hair away from your forehead. His lips feel warm and real and  _alive_  against yours and you melt into his embrace. And then, gently, he’s undressing you, pulling your shirt over your head and slipping his fingers under the waistband of your jeans to undo the button there. You try to return the favor, but his shirt is stuck to his neck with his own dried blood and you wince. He kisses your face tenderly and peels it off himself and you work on his jeans instead.

When you’re both undressed, he pulls you into the shower, into the steady stream of hot water. As steam rises around you, you find yourself pressed up against the tile wall, Enjolras’ open mouth against your neck as your arousal grows, and so does his. Pretty soon he’s grinding his hips against yours and you’re gasping against his ear, his lips kissing every inch of your face and neck.

He makes short work of you and you come quickly, then reach down and take him in your hand, stroking him  as he moans against your collarbone.

“I love you,” he breathes and you barely hear him over the sounds of the water, “so…fucking…much… .”

His hands tighten on your hips as he comes, and then he’s panting with his head on your shoulder. Then he presses lazy kisses into your already kiss-swollen face and you reach up to lightly brush your fingers over the burgeoning bruise on his jaw.

“I love you,” you tell him, and it sounds desperate even to your ear.

He smiles softly at you.

He lets you wash him, getting the rest of the blood and dirt out of every nook on his body, gently washing it out of his hair. When you’ve both been washed clean, he turns off the water and wraps you both in one towel.

“I made dinner,” you mumble, embarrassed, as he nuzzles your jaw. “It’s cold now.”

“I’m not really hungry, anyway,” he replies.

“Me neither.”

When you’re climbing into bed with him (neither of you bothered to get dressed, so you feel the delight of his skin against your skin), and tangling your legs with his, and resting your head on his chest, his hand slips back into your hair.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” you hear him whisper before he presses a kiss into your forehead. “I’ll make it up to you.”

And you know that absolutely nothing has changed. That there will be more nights when he forgets about you and runs out into danger and death because he’s fighting against all the injustices of this world, when you will be sick from worry and he will come home to you broken and beaten. That he’ll lash out at you because he’s angry at the world and you don’t believe that’s going to make it any better. But you can’t bring yourself to care about that right now because his body is with your body and his fingers are in your hair and his chest is rising and falling under your head as he breathes and breathes and you love him.

And there’s nothing you can do to change him, but there’s nothing you ever would.


End file.
